STRIKES & NEGOTIATIONS What’s old is new again, and Joe Biden has awoken from his slumber to stop a 120,000-worker rail strike that otherwise could have begun as soon as Monday morning. That this was basically totally expected by everyone involved, and that it isn’t a final injunction against the strike or anything but part of the unbelievably convoluted bureaucratic process that covers rail (and airline) union negotiations in this country (partly because rail strike activity was so frequent and militant in the late 19th and early 20th century that it forced federal action before private sector unions as a whole were legalized), doesn’t make it any less true that Biden is denying over 100,000 workers their human right to withhold their labor, and we shouldn’t forget that. What happens next is Biden’s presidential emergency board has 30 days to make recommendations, which will then initiate
I'm just now reading up on the unionization at OldCastle in Lilesville, NC and it may be withdrawn because it says closed as of yesterday (7/22) on the NLRB at the link below.
Hi Jonah! Love your newsletter. Yes, just echoing Dave below. The truckers are protesting AB5. They're claiming they are being misclassified as *employees*, not misclassified as non-employees. AB5 was a good law in theory, but with massive carve-outs for Uber and Lyft drivers through Prop 22 (which Uber and Lyft poured tons of money into), it's been largely gutted and is now primarily effecting workers, like the protesting truck drivers, who claim they actually do benefit from the independent contractor classification. It's kind of a mess.
Thank you for writing this. There is so much going on in the world that we don't know, and don't want to know!
I'm just now reading up on the unionization at OldCastle in Lilesville, NC and it may be withdrawn because it says closed as of yesterday (7/22) on the NLRB at the link below.
https://www.nlrb.gov/case/10-RC-298758
Hi Jonah! Love your newsletter. Yes, just echoing Dave below. The truckers are protesting AB5. They're claiming they are being misclassified as *employees*, not misclassified as non-employees. AB5 was a good law in theory, but with massive carve-outs for Uber and Lyft drivers through Prop 22 (which Uber and Lyft poured tons of money into), it's been largely gutted and is now primarily effecting workers, like the protesting truck drivers, who claim they actually do benefit from the independent contractor classification. It's kind of a mess.
I think the port drivers are protesting AB 5? They don't want to be classified as employees.